


hey little songbird

by KaoticFive (SpaceDisgrace)



Series: It's an old song [2]
Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: Does sam need a break...yes...do i give him it...no, Established Relationship, Five OC, How badly can i beat up Five...tune in to find out, Multi, This fic gets pretty heavy but i always put content warnings, also season three, but i do warn those, season one and two spoilers, season three
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:27:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27779866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceDisgrace/pseuds/KaoticFive
Summary: After the tragedy of Season Two, Abel has to rebuild, and Five along with it. But slowly, as everyone leaves, is there really any point in trying.(A novelisation of Season Three will focus mostly on the moonchild arc, but follows the whole series of events. Sam and Five are together at the start of the fic)
Relationships: Runner Five/Sam Yao
Series: It's an old song [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1857820
Comments: 39
Kudos: 32





	1. Prologue

_Why can’t everyone be happy…it just doesn’t seem fair_

It hurt.

All she knew was hurt.

Between the vomiting, the screaming, and the crying, Five was a little surprised she managed to survive it at all.

She wasn’t exactly aware, always just on the edge, on the cusp of consciousness. There was something warm, always there, always to lean on, but there was something cold too.

A numbness, a settling wave, like the final push of a tide against the shore before the beach was completely consumed. Icy and devastating, and still.

It was patient.

A glacier.

Five knew that numbness, and between the hurt, she craved it. There was a comfort in knowing things won’t hurt you. But the warmth still pressed to her, still holding her hand. And the cold very quickly lost its appeal.

But it was still there, waiting, ready to flood. Oceans were patient, it would bide its time, she knew that. It wasn’t a matter of if she gave in, it was a matter of when.

Everything would drown in the end.

But for now, she held onto the warmth.

* * *

Sam lay on his side, Five curled up to his chest. She was still feverish, but it was a blessing the screaming stopped.

God…that screaming.

Sam wasn’t sure what he hated more, the fact they had no idea what Van Ark had done to Five, or the fact that they had no idea what happened to the missing Abel residents.

It had been two days since they disappeared and nothing…nothing had come up, on anything. Two days since Five collapsed and she’d barely managed a few hours of coherence where she spent most of the time vomiting up nothing.

They couldn’t give her anything, Paula already figured the painkillers Five had taken had somehow made the whole thing worse, and they knew absolutely nothing about what Van Ark gave her that they didn’t want to risk giving her anything else, so she just had to grit it out. And it was exhausting for him to watch, it must be excruciating to endure.

Five started shaking again, curling in tighter to him. Sam quickly adjusted his hold, rubbing her back, making sure the blanket sufficiently covered her. She was always so cold, despite the fever she just seemed cold, it scared him a little.

He used to joke that she was a secret reptile person, the way Five scrambled to warm things, one could almost believe she was cold-blooded.

But even despite the dangerously high temperatures she was reaching, she still seemed cold.

The movement must have woken her because she made a noise, shifting a little.

She squinted up at him. “Sam?” She asked, voice tiny and hoarse.

“Heya, I’m right here, are you okay?”

She sniffed, looking a little lost, and Sam wondered if this was another one of the times, he thought she was awake but really it was just another awful dream about needles or trucks or Sara or-

“Jeez, I really need a shower.”

Sam shifted to get a better look at her. “What?”

“Like…honestly…I am a bit ripe.”

Sam laughed, “You’re kidding?”

“No. Honestly Sam you need to get a better taste in women, I am not exactly a catch right now.”

Sam couldn’t help it, he started to cry, this was the most coherent he’d seen Five in two days. “Okay…I think we can get you a shower, but maybe once you’ve eaten something yeah?”

“Ugh…fine.” She sniffed again. “It better be soon.”

Sam continued to cry, he pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Five smiled, shifting so she could wrap her arm around his back, pressing her head into his shoulder. “Nap first.”

Sam nodded. “Okay, nap first, then shower.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Maybe she was finally getting better.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers for S3M3  
> Content warning: mild sexual themes, bad dreams  
> Can't spell but that's okay, I'm trying anyway

_I think I love you, I really do._

“Is she…is she wearing mascara?” Tony nudge her arm, nodding at Amelia’s face before jumping at the noise of the gates closing.

Five raised a brow, folding her arms and eyeing up the Amelia women. Without the highly heeled boots, she was a little shorter than Five, blonde hair braided effortlessly – or made to look effortlessly – perfect down her back.

With her high cheekbones and clear bright skin, she looked too clean given the whole end of the world, falling out of a helicopter and having to run for her life. Five had done the whole helicopter debacle, and really, she was pretty certain she wasn’t as well put together.

She should ask Sam how she looked, she’d found it fun recently to tease him about his opinion on her when they first met.

“What’s the bet she has lip-gloss in her bag?” Five signed.

Tony's face was blank. “Sorry I don’t-,”

She gave the kid a gentle smile and patted his shoulder, stepping up closer to Amelia, offering her a bottle of water from her pack, might as well try and be civil. She batted it away and tucked her hair behind her ear, smiling in a way that made Five’s cheeks hurt.

Five scowled back, she wasn’t in the mood for fake pleasantries. Amelia stammered and turned to Paula.

“Alright, let’s see. Twenty-three, what were you saying about the device?”

Paula straightened and wiped her brow. “I’ll take a look at it as soon as I get-,”

“Look at it now, please,” Amelia interrupted, turning fully away from Five. “No time to waste. Give me your findings in the morning.”

“What? Wait a min-,”

Amelia waved a well-manicured hand in Five’s general direction. “Runner Five, attend her assistance as necessary, but I’d like a written report on your discoveries at the base on my desk by the end of the day.”

“Will you now?” Five signed.

Amelia blanked her, opting to pick at some thread on her coat.

Whether she could read signs or not, that was just plain rude.

“Give them a break!” The kid stepped forward. Five would put him about sixteen, maybe younger, it was hard to tell when they were that age. “They’ve just run themselves ragged to save your backside,”

She flicked off some thread onto the quad, getting stuck in the mud. “Well, I’ve yet to decide what to do with you, Tony.” Amelia sighed like the act of conversation was so incredibly draining. “First things first, follow me. I need a full debrief on the London situation”.

Tony snorted. “Debrief? Do I look like I debrief? I ain’t debriefing nothing. Debrief yourself.”

Five liked this kid.

“Now, now.” Amelia waggled her finger. “Everyone in my town-," _you're town?_ "-pulls their weight. All I want is a chat. A fair exchange for a safe place to sleep, wouldn’t you say?”

He opened his mouth to bite back, but really, the promise of a warm bed was often enough to sway anyone nowadays. That or warm water.

Five rolled out her shoulder, she wondered if she could convince Sam to share his hot water slot today.

Paula cleared her throat. “Ma’am, if I may speak to Tony about Maxine, first-,”

Amelia tutted. “That can wait, and really, call me Amelia.”

_I can call you something else if you like._

“This is harsh! Can’t we just have two minutes to get our breath?” Tony argued.

“Do you want to get your people back?” Amelia said, talking as if she were talking about the weather and not their family who had gone missing. “Do you want to find out just what these Comansys types are doing to them?” She raised a brow at the kid. “Or do you want to laze around, putting your feet up while the scoundrels who stole your friends get further and further away?”

It was a stunned silence from Paula and Tony, they hadn’t really met Amelia’s sort before.

They should have gone to Mullins.

“Now, you’ve all got your duties to attend to. Update me within the hour if you anticipate any difficulties,” Amelia adjusted her jacket and strolled away, clicking at Tony. “You come along. I need to find my office.”

His shoulders slumped. “See you later, if I survive the interrogation.”

_Poor kid._

Paula leaned a little closer to him. “Just tell me quickly – Maxie. What happened to her?”

He chewed his lip, nose flaring a little. “They were very keen on transferring her to the secure area. Said something about a Comansys safehouse. That’s all I heard, I swear.”

Amelia clicked her fingers again. “Come along.”

He sighed. “Yeah, yeah, coming.”

“What a charmer,” Sam’s voice crackled over the headset.

Five snorted.

“She’s not wrong, we do need to work harder, slacking off won’t find Maxie,” Paula said.

Five had yet to decide what to make of Paula. After hearing about her for a year from Maxine, Five built a very different image in her head than the actuality.

The actuality wasn’t a bad thing, just…well…different.

She was a lot goofier than Maxine made her out to be, though Five may have just projected a strange bias onto the idea of highly established science woman. She imagined a soft Janine type. Instead, she got something a little more Sam.

Probably explained why they got on so well. If Five was the jealous sort – which she hoped she wasn’t – she would be jealous about how much time they spent together.

Not that Sam and Five were official…they hadn’t really had the talk.

_We really should have the talk._

Five followed Paula to the lab, switching her headset to home mode. A new feature, Janine thought of it, with fewer runners and more missions, they needed a way to ping them as fast as they could, so, headsets at all times.

Five took hers off and hung it around her neck, she’d hear it ping if they needed her. Which was all the time these past two weeks.

Two weeks since _they_ went missing. Two whole weeks.

And aside from the two days it took her to get whatever the hell Van Ark gave her out of her system, and the two days of recovery she was given but didn't really need, Five was back on her feet for the other ten days, running mission after mission.

Not just search and rescue, but someone had to pick up the slack for the lost Runners.

Without Ed and his bike, without a good portion of the other more menial runners, the job of supplies fell on her again.

She didn’t want to admit how disappointed she was that she no longer had the important missions. In a sick way, she liked those. The supply runs…well, she could think on the supply runs. That was unwelcome.

And with all the running, and Sam working near on eighteen hours a day with the other runners, and Five coordinating the training of new Runners, they hadn’t really had time for much more than a few desperate evenings together before one of them – usually Sam – passed out from exhaustion.

She didn’t like it like this, sure there were some benefits, but she wanted it to be proper, not just some friends who sleep together kind of thing.

_What if that’s all he wants._

Five sped up her pace to catch up with Paula.

“You have any idea on what sort of tests to run?” Five asked.

Paula took a while to read signs, so Five went deliberately slow.

She sniffed. “I don’t want to fiddle with it too much.”

Five smirked.

That got a smack to the back of the head. “You actual child,” Paula said. “You have the brain of a twelve-year-old boy.”

Five shrugged, then held her hands out for the device, Paula gave it to her and Five turned it over as they walked.

It was similar to the tone box she’d used to control the hoards when Simon-

It was just similar, the same interlocking metal with haggard switches and buttons that both pressed and spun. Tony had been right, this one was delicate.

The other had survived her desperate punching of the buttons but this seemed to get fragile at the slightest bit of pressure.

Five could relate.

She couldn’t locate its power source, nor could she find any indicator it was on or off, no light to flash, just a gentle vibration from under the metal.

She handed it back to Paula. “I’m not sure what she expects us to do, it’s just going to fall apart if you poke at it.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

“You could always bullshit the report.”

Paula chuckled. “I could, but it would be wro-,”

“If you like, I can bullshit the report for you, you can focus on working on those trackers,” Five interrupted.

Paula smiled. “You’d do that?”

“Dear, I’m an excellent bullshitter,” Five said, kicking the door open to the lab and holding it for her. “Plus, I want to see how long it takes Amelia to learn my handwriting from yours.”

“You have weird hobbies, okay that’s-,” Paula’s smile hardened. “What are you doing in here?”

Five peaked over Paula’s curls, Kefilwe – the new medical doctor – curled up on the chair Maxine used to curl up on, tea in one hand and files in the other.

Kefilwe frowned. “I’m…working.”

Paula squinted and practically stomped into the room, putting the device down hard onto the table. “Work somewhere else, I need the lab.”

Kefilwe looked between Five and Paula. “I won’t be a bother-,”

“Yes you will,” Paula interrupted, “I need silen-,”

“Doctor, I was wondering if we could go over some drills?” Five signed, clicking her fingers to get their attention.

Paula stared at her. “Don’t you have reports?”

Five shrugged. “I could write them in the evening…Doctor?”

Kefilwe opened her mouth, then closed it again. “Of course,” she stood, piling her notes and tucking them into her tattered brown satchel, she palmed the mug of coffee like her hands were cold despite the heat in the lab.

_A nervous tell?_ Five thought. _Sara would know._

She held the door open for Kefilwe, waving at Paula and closing it behind, not missing the face Paula pulled.

Another Sam-Paula bonding activity, bitching about the new doctor.

She hoped it was just the stress, it’ll die down soon, neither Sam nor Paula were cruel people, they just…it was the stress.

“What can I help you with?” Kefilwe asked.

Five started heading to the training field. “I’ve noticed my times getting better, I wanted you to officially update it in my records.”

Kefilwe frowned. “You’re already the fastest runner.”

Five bounced on her feet and smiled. “I could always be better.”

* * *

It took a while for the sleep to lose him. Sam was always a heavy sleeper, it weighed on him like a fog, slow and thick and taking far to long to drift. Even after he realised Five was sat with her head on her knees, arms wrapped around her legs and shaking something awful Sam was still half-asleep.

He sat up, wrapping his arms around her stomach and pressed a kiss to her bare shoulder blade. She was warm, too warm.

Five didn’t relax, but she did lean into him a little.

That was something.

“Bad dream?” He asked, resting his chin on her shoulder.

Five nodded, still shaking.

“Wanna talk about it?”

Five curled in tighter. “It hurts.”

“What does?”

“Everything.”

He pulled some of her hair back, studying her face. Though her eyes were open there was something off and, yeah, she was still asleep. Chances are she wouldn’t remember this in the morning, like the last three times since she started this.

Sam traced shapes onto her back. “How about you lie down and talk about this in the morning?”

She didn’t respond but did let him guide her back under the sheets. Five had this adorable habit of pulling herself as close to him as possible when she was asleep, practically pressing up against him, burying her face in his neck and making a contented little noise.

He almost drifted when she said something.

“Hmm?”

“I think we should make this official,” she mumbled into his neck.

Sam nodded, a little surprised she beat him to it, he was planning on asking when they managed to line up a day off together, however long that took.

It was supposed to be special, he was gonna plan something, but here, now, both of them half asleep and a little too warm on a bed a little too small, it was probably the perfect time to do it. Not everything had to be a grand gesture all planned and correct, there was a unique joy in the imperfect.

“I’d like that.”

Five snorted. “Good, now you’re stuck with me.”

“What a shame.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back!!! A new chapter is up! This is so exciting, I hope people like this as much as I like writing it. Season three is my favourite so I'm pretty damn excited about getting to write it!  
> Also excited about having to write an established relationship, I'm such a sucker for that!  
> I hope you enjoyed it!  
> Stay Safe Out There xx


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers for S3M5  
> CW: Mentions of death, grief, trauma, and hearing voices  
> Beta'd by the AMAZING AND WONDERFUL Chloe!

_I never thought I would meet someone like you_

The words were starting to blur on the page, jumbling up into something new, the blank spaces behind the letters shimmering and pulling her attention away from the important stuff.

Paperwork.

Five didn’t think the end of the world would come with so much damn paperwork. And how had she been the one the paperwork landed on? Five could barely focus long enough to read a book, let alone going through file after file after file.

She curled up in Sam’s chair, scratching the back of her neck, trying to relieve the tension that was building.

Milo whined under the desk and Five patted his fur gently with the side of her foot, he lowered his head and went back to dozing.

She squinted. Reading over the mission report from this morning.

Five sighed.

She leaned forward and pinged Sam’s headset.

It took a while for him to respond, and when he did his voice was groggy… _ what time was it anyway? _

“Five, it’s two in morning-,”  _ So that’s the time  _ “Are you okay?”

“This mission with Runner Fifteen this morning, who approved it?”

Sam sighed, she could hear the bedsheets shifting. He cleared his throat. “I did, why?”

“Fifteen hasn’t done enclosed space training yet,” she cocked her head like looking at it from another angle would help. “And she’s not had encounter training, why was she sent to a known swarmed area, did Janine clear this with you?”

Sam was quiet for a while, she thought maybe he’d fallen asleep until “…Five, come to bed.”

“I want to get this finished.”

“Uhhh…well, Janine was busy, Fifteen said she’d done that training and-,”

“She lied.”

“I guess.”

Great, not even three weeks since Fifteen started training and she was already doing missions way out of her depth. “You didn’t think to double check?”

Sam laughed. “Five, we don’t really have the numbers to pick and choose our runners, all the runners suitable were busy,”

“I wasn’t.”

“You were sleeping.”

“You could have woken me up.”

“Like you’re doing to me now.”

Five had to stop herself from quipping back. “Sorry, sorry, I shouldn’t have woken you.”

More shuffling, the sounds of sleep dripping away. “How much work do you have left to do?”

“I need to reorganise the training plan, Jody’s been double-booked, and I don’t trust Kytan or Yang to train the newbies, those two have about as much encounter skill as a drunk hedgehog.”

“That’s…why did your brain go to that?”

“I’m just worried the new runners aren’t getting the skills they need, you know twenty-five has only just turned sixteen, he’s an actual child-,”

“Yes, I did know that-,”

“And Paula is great and all, but her skill doesn’t really lie in encounters, I could always try and carve out some time for her to work on her shooting, it would be good to have a medical doctor in the field, though her blood is a problem”

“I’m not sure she would like that-,”

“I think the only person I feel completely happy with is Louise, and I’m pretty sure that’s because she can pull off a buzzcut.”

“Is that a qualifier?”

“I wonder if I can talk to Kefilwe about organising basic medical training for the new runners.”

“Like Maxine used to do?”

Five blanked. “Uhhh.”

“Is there anything you need, Five?” Sam sounded mad, well, she had just woken him up at two in the morning and brought up Maxine, that was bound to piss him off.

“More runners.”

He laughed.  _ That was good, not too mad. _ “Can I offer you a warm bed in this trying time? I’ve been keeping it warm for hours, alone, it’s an absolute tragedy.”

“I really should get this-,”

“We only have supply runs tomorrow, you’ll have time to think about them then. If you like, you can tell me your ideas and I’ll write them out for you during the mission.”

“ _ Only supply runs _ , everything goes wrong on supply runs,” Five said.

“I would like to see your data, I expect graphs.”

“You expect I’m smart or something?”

“Never, smart people don’t stay up till two in the morning, they rest.”

“Hmmm,” she started clearing up her papers.

“Fiiiiiiiivvvvveeeeeee.”

Five whistled for Milo to come out from under the desk and tucked the files back onto the shelf, giving his head a little scratch.

“Fivvvvvvvvveeee, I’ll keep making annoying noises.”

“I’m coming, I’m coming.”

“Yay me.”

“Jesus,” she blew out the candle she was working by. “Honestly, you wouldn’t think I’m dating an adult.”

“But we are dating.”

Five smiled, tucking in Sam’s chair and heading out of the shack, headset still on, Milo on her heel.  _ Yeah, we are. _

* * *

There was a strange smell in the lab. It still sort of smelled like Maxine, cigarette smoke and chemicals, though he didn’t suppose Maxine would mind him telling her that when she got back.

_ If she got back. _

“Maxine always was a stress smoker.”

Sam jumped, spinning. Paula was leaning on the door frame, arms folded, hair tied back and hands on hips. Where Maxine presented a soft confidence, Paula had something sterner about it. Not harsh, just, well, he could see why Maxine liked her so much, she sort of demanded attention.

“You’d think she’d know better as a doctor,” Sam said, tapping his hand on the ashtray that still hadn’t been emptied.

Paula shrugged. “Doctors are the worst for it. It’s stressful work, what’s a little killing yourself?”

Sam breathed in the smell of smoke again.

Simon used to sit on the step outside their bunk, he’d smoke and chat with Five, and…and betrayed them all.

“It’s gross.”

“Have you ever actually tried it?” Paula asked.

Sam raised a brow. “Doctor Cohen, are you encouraging stress smoking?”

She smiled. “Not at all…but well, you are stressed.”

Sam scrunched his nose.

“Why are you hiding in here again?”

He folded his arms.

“Sam?”

“It’s Sara’s memorial in an hour,” he explained, turning back to face the table and poke at some of the papers. “Everyone is just so…there’s a lot of emotion.”

She shifted in the doorway. “I never thought you would be the one to shy away from a little emotion.”

“No…no just,” how could he say it without sounding horrid, without sounding unsympathetic and cruel. “I’m sad she’s gone.”

Paula hummed an agreement. “She was a good woman.”

And this was the problem.

Sara was not a good woman. Was she?

He was starting to lose his hold on what meant good. Five was good, Maxine was good – and gone.

Simon was…he wasn’t.

Jamie? No. Sure, Sam could justify his anger, but beating Simon to a pulp? Sam didn’t know what he thought of that.

Janine was good right? Did someone who let Five get tortured count as good?

His runners, Paula, Five, Jody, Sam could trust his runners. Simon was just a bad egg, the rest…they would never do something to hurt. Five, Jody, Paula, they were certain, everything else was just getting a little muddled.

And Sara.

Could he mourn for someone he didn’t really like and who didn’t like him?

He did mourn for his father.

Sam ran a hand over his face. “Yeah, yeah, she was a good woman.”

_ No need to sully the dead. _

“Sam, how are you?”

“Peachy.”

“Are you sleeping?” Paula snorted. “Well, as much as you can with a new girlfriend.”

Sam spun and gave her a dead look, she smirked and pointed at him.

“Look at you, your ears have gone bright red.”

Sam straightened up and shoved past her outside. “You are just as bad as Five.”

Paula snorted again. “Oh…Five likes teasing you too huh?”

Sam punched her arm.

“Sorry, sorry, I’ll stop,” she jogged a little to match pace with him on their walk to the gates. “How are you two going?”

Sam smiled. “You’re just digging for gossip.”

“Oh come onnnnnn, there is so little gossip here, people are desperate, and I intend to be their humble saviour, and well, I tried to pull info out of Five, but that’s like trying to pull a tooth with the amount of fuss she gives.”

“That’s just her teasing you, the more you try, the more she’ll refuse,” Sam explained. “It’s not like we’re keeping things secret.”

“But Five won’t tell me?” Paula said, she slipped a little on the wet muddy floor, laughed and straightened up again. “She doesn’t want to talk about it, I keep thinking she’s mad at me.”

Sam made sure to avoid the slippery mud for the rest of the walk, slowing the pace. “Five hardly knows you, give her time, she’ll come around.”

“Or she’ll stab me first.”

“It’ll be a friendly stab, I promise.”

“Oh, well that makes it better.”

The crowd of runners attending Sara’s memorial was gathering by the gate, a solemn fog settled on them.

Some people laughed, some chatted, but it was all strained and forced and soft, like if something was too sharp it might break the façade, and everyone would have to realise what they were truly here for.

A death.

Jody waved at him as they approached, Milo sat by her feet, how Five had managed to get a great big dog like that so tame in a few weeks was beyond him.

Sure, Milo was cute, but the little shit had a personal vendetta against Sam.

He didn’t seem to like sharing Five’s attention, and now they were sworn enemies. He growled as Sam approached, Sam gave him finger guns. “Good to see you too bud.”

Jody soothed Milo by scratching his ears before reaching out and grabbing Paula’s hand like they had been friends for years. “Hey guys.”

“Hey.”

She studied her boots, then looked over the crowd, still holding Paula’s hand. “Bigger turn out than Janine expected.”

“Well, she did save everyone’s life,” Paula said. “If she hadn’t injected Van Ark well-,” she trailed off.

Jody squeezed her hand, wrapping her other arm around Sams. “How you doing?”

“You know me, I’m always okay?”

Jody pursed her lips but said nothing more. Now was not the time for questioning gentle lies, now was the time to embrace them.

The sea of heads continued to babble.

Jamie, Owen, Amelia, Louise.

No Five.

“Have you seen-,”

“She’s gone to get the ashes from the farmhouse,” Jody interrupted.

“Alone?”

Jody shrugged. “She just sort of wandered off, so we assumed she-,” she trailed off.

Paula gave Sam a look he couldn’t place.

He needed to learn her looks.

It was another ten minutes until he realised that Five had returned, and that was only because Milo had wandered off. She didn’t approach, she just sort of appeared, hovering at the edge of the group, one hand gripped tightly to a satchel over her shoulder, staring at the gates.

Her eyes were unfocused, but her brows were furrowed.

Sam pushed through the crowd. “Five,” he slid his hand into hers. “Are you ready?”

It took a moment for her focus to settle.

“Have you got it?” Janine asked, nodding at her satchel.

Five looked down like she didn’t notice and gave a tiny nod.

“You know, I think this is rather a good idea. Why not do these things properly,” Amelia puffed out her chest, fancy leather jacket a little too clean.

Sam noticed Five was also wearing a leather jacket with sheep fur lining. The one they had found for Sara last Christmas. When had Five started wearing that?

“The Ministry was very willing to supply the guards to keep the area clear, especially given the very useful leads you’ve been able to give us regarding Comansys.”

Five glared at Amelia, the woman frowned. “Yes, yes, sends the right sort of message. I have to draw up a quick memo about it when we get back.”

Five squinted.

With the fog broken, people started properly talking about Sara, about the things she did, how just goddamn amazing she was.

Five said nothing, did nothing, she didn’t even look like she was listening, she just waited for the conversation to pass.

Eventually, after Janine started to fall into a speech, Sam decided it would be best for everyone – especially Five – if it was over and done with as soon as possible.

“That’s it then,” he announced, nodding at Five’s satchel. “We have the ashes, the map, our path is clear, we should head out.”

The group agreed, waddling towards the gates, leaving Abel behind.

* * *

Five hated the ocean, she fucking hated it. It was cold, and dark, and too vast and…she just fucking hated it.

Who cared about the interesting wildlife, who cared about the sight of it, like a pretty fucking painting, oh isn’t it just so lovely to look at the horizon?

No. No, it wasn’t.

She didn’t like that she could feel the spray of water, from the waves below the pier, freeze her legs as she dangled them off the side, turning over the box in her hand.

Sara had said she hid it there. Or she hadn’t. Five wasn’t sure how panicked she should be that when she woke up this morning, she had a new voice in her head.

Stress, trauma, lack of sleep, it was all of those things, but how had she known that Sara hid something for her?

_ It’s likely you just guessed, I always said you were a smart one. _

Five turned the box over again. Milo was next to her, head resting on his legs, looking over the edge of the pier.

She could hear the rest of the group talking, too soft to make out any words, too loud to be genuine.

They were probably all waiting for her to finish having her little  _ moment.  _ Well. Fuck them too.

_ I’m not sure that’s where you should be directing your anger. _

No. No, that was right, Five was just finding something new to focus on instead of-

They wanted her to be Head Of Runners.

That was something she could focus on.

And this was what she thought, since Jody brought it up, who was the fucking idiot who pitched the idea?

_ You’re getting angry again. _

A part of Five wanted to toss the package into the sea, a last fuck you to Sara.

How dare she die, how dare she make life just that much shittier. If Sara wanted to be buried at sea so badly, she could take her stupid package with her.

See if Five cares.

…

She does care.

…

That was the problem.

Five had started to care too much.

Things didn’t hurt as much before this. How can things hurt when you don’t feel?

Was it easier that way?

Five twisted a little to look back at the others, they had sat, the runners sharing their mission rations with the others, making a picnic of it.

Sam was busy nodding along to a story from Owen, nose scrunching when he laughed.

She pocketed the package and stood with a few cracks, she’d been still for far too long. Milo jumped up at the movement and followed her back along the pier to the others, giving Paula a smile when the woman smiled at her.

Now was really not the time to stop caring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter two is out, I want to try and post at least once a week, and I figured Sunday would be good, but this chapter was just sitting in my docs waiting to be posted, so here, have this a little early, as a treat.
> 
> It's weird writing "calm" scenes again, as it's the start of a new arc things are sort of chill, compared to the disaster that was the end of season two...well, I'm not sure how long it will last
> 
> Thanks so much for reading  
> Stay safe out there!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers up to S3 M7 - Life's a Happy Song  
> Content Warning: Mild sexual themes, PTSD symptoms  
> Beta'd by the brilliant and wonderful Chloe

_ It’s like…tea, everyone loves tea _

_ Day Zero _

Jack said Ellie had a terrible habit of picking at the frayed edges of her books. That was true, but she wasn’t going to let Jack know that, that would mean she would win.

Though, with the way Jack was looking at the TV, Ellie thought it might be best not to upset her.

“ _ Reports are coming in that London has been completely lost, the military has stopped all traffic going in and out of major cities. We have yet to hear the figures of victims, but according to our sources it is within the hundreds of thousands.” _

The way the man spoke on the TV, the shake in his voice. It made Ellie worried.

She put the book down and scooted up next to Jack, wrapping her arm around hers.

“Will, at school, said it’s aliens,” Ellie said. It wasn’t, but maybe the idea would make Jack laugh.

She smiled but didn’t take her eyes off the screen. “They picked a lousy country.”

“Why would anyone pick England?” Ellie parroted.

Jack chuckled. “Exactly.” Her smile dropped.

“Does this mean I won’t be going school tomorrow?”

Jack didn’t respond, she adjusted her glasses and narrowed her eyes.

“ _ Please follow Ministry guidelines, Stay in your homes, do not leave the cities-,”  _ someone yelled outside, a car horn went off. “ _ The government and the military will protect you, stay in your homes until we coordinate an evacuation.” _

Jack shot up at that, making Ellie jump a little on the sofa.

“Fuck that shit, we’re getting out of here,” she ducked into her bedroom. “Empty your school bag, El.”

Ellie was left a little stunned, she stood and followed Jack to the bedroom where she peaked out of the curtain to overlook the road below. “The news said to stay in our homes, that the military would get us.”

Another yell, closer this time. Something sounding like commanding men. Jack closed the curtains again.

“GET BACK IN YOUR HOMES NOW.”

“That was fast,” Jack mumbled. “Your school bag, kid.”

“They told us not to leave.”

“And I’m telling you to get your school bag,” her voice didn’t rise, not like mums, Jack never yelled like that, but it did get sterner.

“Okay, okay, sorry.”

Jack opened her wardrobe and started to pull out clothes. “Don’t apologise, just please get your bag.”

Ellie did so, emptying it of her supplies onto her bed.

“What should I pack?” she called.

Something crashed in Jack’s room. “Uhhh, what would you pack if we were going camping.”

“Are we going camping?”

“Sort off...maybe.”

There was screaming in the street now. Car alarms sounding, the man on the TV still demanding they stay in their homes.

Ellie started to list the things she always took camping, she liked lists. She was good with lists.

Clothes – warm and durable, Jack always said wool, wool holds heat.

Socks – warm again.

Hiking boots.

Toothbrush.

“Pack your sleeping bag, remember how you attach it to the bottom of the rucksack.”

Ellie nodded at her instructions, running – she didn’t know why, but it felt like it warranted running – to the little storage room next to the kitchen where the boiler was.

The sleeping bags were on a high shelf, so Ellie had to drag a chair to get them down. She left Jacks on the floor and took hers back into her room.

Before she could think what else to pack, Jack was in her room, changed into hiking gear and her own pack slung over one shoulder. She dropped it onto the bed and began rummaging through Ellie’s wardrobe for her.

She tossed some clothes at her. “Put these on.”

“I don’t like these trousers.”

Jack sighed. “Why not?”

“I don’t like the colour.”

For a moment Ellie thought Jack might argue but she shook her head and pulled out some more clothes. “These okay?”

Ellie nodded.

“Great,” Jack rushed into the kitchen and started cluttering around the cupboards whilst Ellie changed.

“ _ This just in, we are getting reports from Nottingham, Manchester, Bristol, Brighton, Plymouth, -” _

The names of the cities started to blur.

Ellie was worried now. Like. Really worried.

She did the calm breathing Jack does when she gets worried, counting her breaths as she got herself changed.

“ _ These locations have all been placed under lockdown due to confirmed cases, do not leave, the army will help you.” _

“Fat fucking chance,” Jack swore.

More screaming in the street.

“Jack, where are we going? You’re scaring me.”

Jack rushed back into her room, with Ellie’s coat, and handed it to her. “We’re gonna leave the city.”

For a moment Ellie thought Jack was going to lie to her. A lot of adults did that, lie because they didn’t think she could understand. She hated it. She hated when they hid the truth. But Jack never lied to her.

“This infection they are calling it, it’s…they are going to try and contain it. Do you remember learning about the plague, how they locked people in their homes to stop the spread?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that’s what the Army’s doing, they tried to evacuate London, and they couldn’t, they won’t be able to evacuate here either.”

“So, we ignore them, but they are the army, and what if we are infected and spread it?”

“It apparently spreads through bites, and neither of us have been bitten, and I don’t intend on waiting around to get bitten.” Jack nodded to herself. Ellie wondered who she was trying to convince, it wasn’t Ellie, Ellie would always follow Jack. “But we are clever, and we know the city. It’s going to be a scary night, but we need to get out of the city as soon as possible before they trap us in.”

Ellie could understand that, and she trusted Jack. Jack was the smartest person she knew. “Okay, leave the city, and what next?”

Another moment of silence. “Do you still have that radio you built?”

Ellie nodded and grabbed it from her desk. “It still works.”

“Okay, the plan is, we get out of the city, and lay low, use the radio to listen to the news, and figure out what to do from there.”

“But you said not to listen to the news.”

“No, listening to the news is important, doing what it tells you to do is the thing you have to decide, like how you refuse to listen to me when I tell you to brush your teeth.”

It was a silly joke, one that Ellie was too old for now, but it made her smile.

“We’ll be okay?”

“I promise.” Jack picked her back off the bed. “Five minutes, only pack what you need, and maybe a book.”

She left, the sounds of her putting things in her bag from the kitchen.

Ellie looked at her bed. She got that same lonely feeling she had when she left home with Jack the first time, she would never see this place again, the little room that was hers. Ellie didn’t want to leave it. She liked this room, it had all her posters.

_ Take only essentials. _

She grabbed her teddy and stuffed it in the bag.

* * *

He was checking in with the kids again, Sam had made a habit of it. Each day at lunch he would go to the creche, stare at the zombie repellent device they got from Tony like he could will it to work better, and, well, repel zombies better.

It was mostly to check on Molly. Since Ed walked out with the others, she started playing up something awful. Tantrums and screaming and misbehaving, and she would only calm down when Sam gave her a headset to show her all the work the runners were doing to find him.

After a while the rest of the kids started to crowd around him, asking about his job and the teacher, a soft-voiced old lady from New Canton, Five had forced herself to memorise her name as Judy, had turned it into a lesson.

The dangers of the outside.

Damn, these kids were gonna be fucked up. She was pretty sure she didn’t want to cause more damage.

At least Sam didn’t think she could. He kept trying to get her to come along.

“It’s Runners Day, Five.”

“They made a drawing of you.”

“Some kid dressed up as you.”

“Molly asked after you.”

Five usually just waved a hand and mumbled a half-assed excuse. She had Runners to take care off, let alone the hopes and dreams of some kids.

What if she, like, broke one?

But Sam had been so excited, and he’d grabbed her hand and gave her that look that she couldn’t say no too.

_ It’s just his regular face. _

Yes. And Five can’t say no to it.

She leaned on the door frame, pulling at the frayed edges of the ribbon around her wrist as Sam talked through the mechanisms of a Runners headset, her headset.

“Don’t let them peel off the sticker.”

“I won’t.”

“And if they press any of the buttons.”

“Five…no death glaring the kids.”

“Well, they better not press any of the buttons…they’ll make ‘em sticky.”

“I’ll make sure they won’t.”

“Don’t adjust the size either, or I will murder you.”

“Wow.”

She felt a little naked without it. Five patted her pocket where she kept the remnants of her broken set from the Van Ark incident. It wasn’t working, but it was something.

Sam talked excitedly, the kids watching in awe as he pointed at certain buttons Five had rigged to work in a way that was not the way he was explaining.

He kept looking up at her, which prompted the kids to sneak glances despite Judy telling them to keep eyes front.

The class was an odd bunch, not enough kids to form years, they ranged from children Molly’s age, all the way to ten or eleven. After that Janine had them work in the mornings and study in the afternoons.

Any hands were good hands. Even little ones.

_ What would her place be here? _

Five stopped.

She felt Milo tense against her leg, sitting up a little straighter.

_ What are you even thinking about? _

Five tried to casually squat down, making it look like she was kneeling to scratch Milo’s ears.

_ Focus on his breathing. _

Five counted Milo’s breaths, on top of counting every time his ears twitched, ever time his eyes flicked across the room.

He padded his feet and moved up a little closer to her and Five smiled, scratching under his chin and pulling funny faces at him.

The panic died and she focussed back in on the lesson, Sam wasn’t where he was.

“You doing good?”

Five jumped, Sam now stood at the back of the room next to her.

She nodded, standing straight and checking the time. Five-minute zone out, not as bad.

She smiled. “Kids liked the session?” she signed.

He nodded and handed her the headset back, matching her pace as they left. “Yeah, they really look up to you, you know.”

“That’s what they get for being so short. Little shits look up at everyone.”

“Haha, very funny.”

“I’m hilarious.”

“Clearly.”

Sam slipped his hand into hers as they walked to the galley, swinging them a little, chuckling to himself when Milo ran ahead to receive the attention of some of the off duty runners lounging on the steps outside their billets.

It was still exciting, getting to do this stuff, proper relationship stuff. She felt her cheeks boil every time he held her hand or kissed her cheek or did something so public and outward that screamed they were together. She had almost expected him to be embarrassed by her.

That was a stupid thing to expect.

Sometimes it was a little overwhelming, and Sam was good at spotting when she was shutting down, but for now, she really enjoyed the basic relationship stuff.

Five squeezed his hand.

“Hmmm?” He gave her a dopey smile, he was in a good mood, now was probably the best time to tell him. Or the worst, either way, he would find out when they got to the galley and she knew he’d be miffed.

“I uh, I wanted to tell you I picked up another shift,” Five said. “I’ll be running two missions a day, maybe three.”

Sam stopped. “That’s not a good idea.”

“It’s not a bad one.”

He let go of her hand. “Yeah it is, you hardly sleep as it is it’s-,”

Five shrugged. “I’m okay, really, I’m not tired, and my times are the best, Kefilwe did some medical checks and she said I’m the healthiest I cou-,”

Sam scoffed.

Five bit her tongue. She shouldn’t snap at him for his dislike of Kefilwe, he was working through things. He’ll come around. Sam is nice, he’ll always come round.

She smiled. “Medical says I’m the healthiest I could be, I just-,” she cocked her head at Milo rolling on his back, “I just don’t need as much sleep anymore.”

“You don’t wear your glasses either,” Sam said.

“Huh?”

He shook his head, chewed his lip, there was something he wanted to say, it was clear, but it made him uncomfortable.

Five took his hands and pulled him a little closer. “Hey, you okay?”

Sam swallowed, then nodded.

Five raised a brow.

Sam shook his head.

“What’s up?”

“Everyone keeps leaving,” he said. “The more missions you do, the more chance you’ll-,” he coughed.

She wasn’t really sure how to make this better. Maybe a joke. “Well you saw what those kids said, cockroach Five, you legit can’t get rid of me, no matter how hard you try.”

He smirked. “They didn’t call you a cockroach.”

“I paraphrased…think of me as a boomerang, I’ll always come back.”

“You’re weird.”

She nodded, leading the way back to the galley, feeling a little like she should have said something entirely different.

* * *

Sam woke to Five’s hand press hard into his chest as she jumped up and whacked her head on the wall.

“Mister Yao, you have a mission to run in five minutes, get up.”

Janine at the door. What time was it?

“What?”

He grabbed the clock on the side of his bed seven, shit, the morning run starts at seven.

“You have a mission to run, with Isabel, she arrived last night, did she not find you for the debrief?”

Sam looked at Five rubbing the back of her head.

Yeah.

He was a little preoccupied last night.

“She uh-,” Sam cleared his throat. “We must have missed each other.”

Five sneezed, grimacing at the silence it caused in Janine.

“Uh-huh,” Janine shuffled. “Well, can you and Runner Five make your way to the shack as quickly as possible, this mission is important, alert Jamie on the way.”

“Yes sir.”

Janine walked away and they both broke into a fit of giggles.

“Is your head okay?” He asked, reaching up to get a better look.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Five climbed over him and out of bed, then pointed a finger at him, looking all levels of smug. “ _ You  _ skipped a meeting last night.”

Sam swung his legs out of the bed. “Well, I was a little distracted.”

“Pfft.”

“What?”

“I’m very distracting, thank you very much,” Five stood straight, hands on her hips looking around the messy room. “Shit, I’m gonna borrow some of your clothes is that okay?”

“Sure,” he dug around under the bed. “Sports bra!”

Five caught it and quickly got dressed, his clothes fit her surprisingly well. Well, they were similar height.

It was adorable.

She glared at him. “No comments.”

The shirt was on backwards.

“No comments.”

* * *

Losing Jamie hit him harder than he wanted to admit. They never really got on, Jamie was a bit on the dry humour and snarky comments, something that Sam didn’t really mesh well with – unless it was Five – but it was just another familiar face gone.

Abel was slowly filling with strangers.

Sam didn’t mind strangers, he liked making friends, he just wished the old friends didn’t have to leave either.

Losing Jamie hit him harder than people expected it would, because, well, no one had checked in.

Not even Five.

He shouldn’t blame Five, she was busy with work, and really, he and Jamie weren’t friends, and after losing so many, maybe checking to see if he was okay was redundant, because of course, he wasn’t.

There was a Maxine shaped hole in his life.

Sam finished stirring the tea, ringing out the bags and tossing them into the compost bin and heading back to the comm shack.

He kicked open the door, giving Five an apologetic grimace when she jumped.

“Sorry.”

Five went pale. “Shit, fuck, sorry I didn’t even notice you left.”

Ouch.

Sam put the tea down.

“I didn’t mean it- sorry, work,” she said, gesturing to the piles of notes and maps and articles Five had managed to dig up about Comasys.

He placed a hand on her shoulder. “Any eureka’s?”

Five shook her head. “Nope. For such a big company, they sure do have very little on them, and – well the Ministry are a piece of shit.”

“Five!”

“Well, they are. I’m getting nothing from them.”

“Maybe there is nothing.”

Five stared at the notes again. “Well, I just proved them guilty of money laundering…I think.”

“What?”

Five pointed at one of the pages, scribbled on with big messy handwriting he could hardly read. “After the CEO died,”

“John Abbots.”

“Yes, after he kicked the bucket, he left the company to his top two assistants.”

“Okay…that was-,”

“Albert Goodall and Diana Duncan-Petley,” Five said.

“Diana was like, the PR?”

“She was clients and shit.”

“And shit.”

“So there should be loads of info on her, but there ain’t, and the info on Albert Goodall just says he has a law degree and handled all that technical jargon.”

“Yeah…so how does this prove they were money laundering.”

“The tax forms show that they were paying three CEO’s but there’s only two listed on any public docs, so…money laundering,” Five stared at him like she just uncovered a great secret.”

“Money laundering…so they were dodgy?”

“Yeah!”

“And this helps us figure out where our people are, how?”

Five’s features crumpled. “I’m…working on it.”

“Five…this isn’t helping.”

“But it’s something.”

“It’s-,” Sam ran a hand over his hair, tensing his shoulders just a little. “Why aren’t you looking at like, office locations or…this isn’t going to find Maxy.”

Five turned back to her notes. “You should go to bed, you look tired.”

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No…no you’re right, I got too focused on this line of thought, sorry I- sorry.”

Sam tensed his jaw. “You’re going to keep working?”

“I’m not tired.”

Sam stroked down her hair a bit and kissed the crown of her head. “Don’t work too late, huh?”

She nodded.

Sam left, feeling like he should have said something entirely different.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked this chapter. I'm trying something a little different with my storytelling as I really want to tell this story well!  
> I am going to try and post more over the holidays, but I do have exams I need to study for in January so I'm sorry if I can't  
> Thank you so much for reading!  
> Stay Safe out there!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers for S3M10 The man who sold the world  
> Content Warnings: Loss of grip on reality, swearing, general zombie deathness and Simon Lauchlan   
> Beta'd by the fabulous, brilliant, awesome Chloe!

_ Your leg…it took a hit, you doing okay, man? _

_ You know _ , Five thought.  _ Zombie cult? It was just her luck. _

Cults, grated zombies, what next?

_ Don’t ask that question, you don’t want an answer to that. _

Five’s more practical thoughts started to sound more like Sara each day.

“Do not resist, allow our brothers and sisters their nourishment,”

Five groaned.

“Yeah, yeah, you allow me my nourishment when I get my hands on you,” Louise yelled back.

The water was high, up to their waists, Five had to tighten her pack to stop it from dragging back. The base of the river slipped beneath her boots, the surface uneven and unstable. Louise – being a lot shorter than Five – had nearly tripped a few times, the push of the current knocking her back.

“The walls of those cliffs are sheer for another couple of miles! They picked this place for a reason.” Sam announced.

Louise nodded, the small tail of hair on the back of her head bouncing. She stared around wide-eyed, bad running habit, she should keep her eyes forward.

_ It’s from being a criminal, gotta check all your points when you don’t have Sam watching your back. _

Luckily, Sam would always watch Five’s back.

“Yeah, I saw some bones washed up on a ledge we passed. These sickos have probably been feeding their pet zombs here for months.”

Delightful.

“Please, don’t resist. It will make it harder for you. Allow yourself to become one with them. With your sacrifice, we shall live.”

Louise threw a rock up at the cultist on the cliff. “Why don’t you jump down here and say that?”

In Louise’s distraction, Five had to swing off her pack and smack a zombie around the head with it, knocking it back into the water, dragged away.

“No, no, do not hurt our brothers,” the leader cried.

Five pulled her pack on and resisted grabbing Louise’s arm to get her moving, she wouldn’t appreciate that. Louise luckily followed.

“They’ve gone mad,” Sam said, voice coming in tinny.

“I don’t know,” Louise nervously adjusted the grip on her bat. “I’ve met a few religious crazies in prison, and this isn’t so far away from general religious crazy talk.”

“Over here, over here.”

“Oh God, what now?”

Up on a ledge a few metres above the waterline, a grimy looking woman hung over the edge, her arm hanging down to them.

She had faded Henna inked up her hand and arm, hidden in some places by a layer of mud and blood.

“Climb up onto the ledge. I’ve got a way out, but it’ll take three people. Please be quick.”

Louise eyed the woman’s blonde matt of hair, it was far too long to be practical, especially not tied back.

_ She’d be wise to lop that hair off, even if it is a pretty blonde. _

“That could be another trap,” Sam said.

A growl. Too close. Louise and Five had a silent exchange, Five nodded and put her back to the ledge getting ready to give Louise a leg up.

“We’re not going to last another two miles of river running, Sam. And Five agrees. We’re going up.”

Five tossed Louise up with a little more strength than she intended.

“Jesus Five, you been working out?”

With her pack Louise wouldn’t be able to lift her, so Five just…jumped.

She caught the edge of the ledge and without that much effort, muscled her way up onto the top of the ledge and straight onto her feet.

The women blinked at her.

“What?” Five signed.

Louise looked Five up and down, leaning back and folding her arms. “If you and Sam ever break up…”

“HEY!” Sam’s squeaked.

Five smiled, peaking back over the ledge, the dead coalescing at the base, gnarled peeled hands clawing up at the wall, nails dragged from fingers.

Louise laughed, catching Five’s attention, bending double and grabbing her knees. “Holy shit, that was something,” she straightened and wiped her brow. “Fuck me.”

The woman that had called them stood nervously, pulling at a large clump of hair.

She wore a baggy shirt tucked into harem trousers and a pair of old brown boots, scuffed and muddy.

“Thank Gaia,” she cried. Louise groaned. “I thought I’d die here alone! I only have one soy bar left.”

There was a long moment where it was clear Louise was deciding what to make of this woman. She wasn’t old, maybe late thirties, if she could keep above a shamble it was likely she wouldn’t slow them down.

Five reached for her knife.

Louise stepped forward. “And you are-?”

The woman’s eyes widened, darting around their heads, Five looked up to see if something was there, and when she looked back the lady had jumped forward and grabbed her wrist, patting her hand.

Five stopped.

“Ah, sorry. Sorry,” the lady let go of her wrist and Five started again, stepping back when the woman waved her hands around Five’s space. “Our auras are so connected. You feel that, too, don’t you? Your purple aura, my blue one.”

Five folded her arms.

The lady just smiled. “Sorry, I,” she clasped her hands before her and bowed. “I’m Moonchild.”

* * *

Sam handed Five another bowl of soup. That was one thing he wasn’t upset about her new habits, Five ate a lot more now. She had a weigh in with the woman who wasn’t Maxine, and it was determined that Five needed to eat more with the number of runs she was doing, so Janine and Amelia – though the latter more reluctantly – had approved of Five getting double rations.

And even then, Five still complained of being hungry.

So, he handed her another bowl, he didn’t like this soup, he could live without it and munch on the bread Five always left.

She nodded thanks and pushed her empty bowl out the way, making quick work with her third ration. She looked healthier, brighter even, though she barely slept more than four hours and ran upwards of twenty kilometres some days, this was probably the healthiest she had been in a year.

And yet.

Sam couldn’t escape the feeling like everything was going to come crashing down. Something would break, whether Five, or him, or Abel’s walls, but he felt like he was constantly on edge, constantly waiting for another person to turn their backs on them, to try and hurt them, to betray them.

Sometimes Sam caught himself in a spiral of lies, usually involving Five. Five would say something off and Sam would fall into a pit convinced she was about to do something bad, that maybe she and Simon were the traitors, that he didn’t know if he could trust her.

He would catch himself, and he would hate himself, because out of everyone in Abel, Five would never lie to him. Never. She promised.

And yet.

And yet.

In his spiral, Sam hadn’t noticed the lady they picked up from the cult scoot into the seat next to Five, press up to her and grab her arm until Five stiffened against him.

“Five, you go by Five, that’s what you said back at the river. Runner number Five,” she leaned a little closer, Sam could smell the patchouli on her. “Weird name, man, Five.”

Five stared down at her arm under Moonchild’s hand. The woman raised her hands in mock surrender.

“Right, sorry, you sign, that’s totally cool. Are you deaf then, mute, did you take, like a vow of silence or something? I did that once, in this monastery in Tibet, they ran a meditation retreat where you had to not talk for days, which personally, I found to be very enlightening, learned a lot about myself.”

“That’s unfortunate,” Five signed.

Sam snorted.

“No, I don’t think it is.” Sam was taken back that she knew BSL, Five didn’t blink – Sara’s poker face was genetic. “Self-discovery is, like, the way to freedom, man. So yeah, you’re mute then, obviously not deaf since you can hear me just fine.”

“That’s more unfortunate,” Five signed.

It was Moonchild’s turn to look a little shocked. “You…don’t like me very much?”

“Not particularly.”

Okay, that was rude, even for Five standards.

Moonchild looked at Sam. “Your auras, they are out of synch, did you notice that?” She nodded at Sam. “For your lover, his aura is completely out of line, they should mix, compliment, not clash,” she turned back to Five, the smile still on her face, but stilted, prideful. “Yours aren’t even in similar shades like ours are.”

Was…Moonchild hitting on Five, right in front of him?

Sam started. “Hey, you-,”

Five turned slightly to her, cocking her head a little and the woman’s smile dropped a little.

She recovered, patted the side of Five’s face and stood up. “You should smile more.”

Moonchild swooped away without so much of a glance back, if she had, she may have dropped dead from the glare Five was throwing her way.

“What the fuck was that?” Sam asked.

Five turned back to her food, shovelling more soup into her mouth, talking through the food. “Fuck if I know,” soup sprayed a little. “But if I ever hear someone refer to you as my lover, I’m cutting their tongue out.”

“Why?” Sam laughed.

“It makes me feel like I’m a king and you’re my hidden mistress in some terrible historical romance.”

Sam shrugged. “Sounds like fun.”

She gave him a playful hit to the arm. “I’m not here to kink shame, but that’s solid a no from me.”

“Oy, rude, I was just working up the courage to mention it to you, and you hurt me so, why would you refuse me so.”

“I’m anti-royal.”

“Does that mean you’re anti-Jamie?”

Five scrunched her nose. “He’s on thin ice, gets two points for being a mad lad.”

“How thin?”

“Like…mega thin.”

“Ah yes, the metric unit of  _ mega thin _ .”

“Sam.”

“Yes, dear?”

“Shut up.”

“Never.”

* * *

The warning shot clipped the side of his mask, spraying cheap plastic back into the mud. She was hoping it would shatter. Crack under its own brittleness.

“Whoa, put that gun away, Five.”

The intonations, the northern drawl, even before he spoke, she knew. His shape, his gait, the roll of his chest as he breathed, the lopsided walk putting his good shoulder first.

It was him.

Simon Fucking Lauchlan.

Five wasn’t sure what to do, kill him? Yell at him? Beat him up?

Well, it seemed Five already knew what to do, her body was already making a bolt away.  _ If you run from your problems, you won’t have to deal with them. _

In an almost comical moment, Five turned flat on her heel and started to walk away. Nothing too fast, just a brisk walk, she wasn’t sure she could stomach running.

When he didn’t say anything, Five had a brief panic that she made him up.

“Hold up, Five, fitness has fallen a bit recently.”

She’d lost it, she’d gone over the rails, this was just her brain trying to deal with whatever had gone on. She was hearing Sara, she was seeing Simon.

This was too much.

Five started running.

Words were yelled at her, but Five just wanted to get away, this wasn’t fair. This wasn’t any sorts of fair.

_ Since when was life fair? _

“For God’s sake,” he grabbed her arm, Five shook him off easily, too easily.

_ Not real, not real, not real. _

“Five, stop running away! I’ve been trying to get you alone for weeks. I’ve got some intel that you’re going to find very interesting about a certain someone. I’ll give you a clue – rhymes with  _ Pan Dark _ .”

_ He’s dead. _

_ Is he? _

_ Yes, I shot him. _

_ You didn’t see a body, he’s coming for you. _

_ You should have seen the body _

_ You should have ripped his head from his- _

“He’s dead,” Five mumbled.

Simon laughed awkwardly behind her. “Five, I’m not kidding. Oh, never mind that now, just listen to me – you’re going the wrong way.”

So she’s going the right way. Five sped up.

“You can’t hear Sam because the Dedlocks have got a signal blocker, and you’re running slap-bang into an ambush. You need to turn left.

Five turned right.

“Left!” Simon stopped running. “Suit yourself. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

It faded into silence again, shoes cracking on the frozen forest floor, breath rising in plumes before her. She could feel the cold on her lips, the heat rushing to her cheeks and ears. A sting, a pain, she’s alive.

A breath.

She’s alive.

He’s dead. Both of them.

“He’s dead.”

Five almost convinced herself the entire thing was made up, that she just had an episode, that maybe she’d cracked more than she thought.

A bullet clipped her arm, sharp, bright. She didn’t cry out, didn’t dare, Five just bowed her head and plundered forward.

Three figures, in yellow, hidden amongst the pine trees, one with a sniper rifle at least. One gun.

“Give it up, pal, you’re surrounded!”

Mud sprayed up by her feet. Semi-automatic. Two guns. “That was a warning, Abel runner. Next one goes through your head.”

Five almost laughed. They’d have to catch her first.

Another round of fire, this time north-west. Not Dedlocks, different weapon, a pistol, single fire. Three guns. “No, I don’t think so.”

Simon was hidden under a brush, his dirty white trainers peeking out behind a dead bush.

The barrel of the sniper rifle caught the light as the owner spun to use the scope in Simon’s direction.

“Who the hell is that?”

Five found cover and aimed her pistol at the sniper, scanning for the other voices.

“I don’t know, they’re wearing a mask,” Sniper said.

A flash of white. Simon moved south.

He waved at her to follow.

“Quick, Five, over here. I can’t get them all.”

One weak Simon, three – at least – Dedlocks who could aim.

Sam was going to kill her.

Five followed Simon.

“They’re getting away – after them.”

Five kept her pistol out, running just behind Simon to keep both eyes on him. She would not put her back to him. Not ever.

“I’ve been practising my marksmanship. I hope you’re impressed, Five. Stick with me, and I’ll see you safe. I’d give you my word on that, but you know what that’s worth, don’t you? Yeah, I know what you think it’s worth.”

_ Jack shit. _

* * *

“Do you know what happened?”

Jack shrugged. “I know Jack shit.”

Ellie groaned. “I hate you.”

Jack chuckled, cocking her head to continue picking at the lock to the back of the sports shop.

“When did you learn to pick locks?” Ellie asked, hiking up her backpack. Something crashed a few streets over, she jumped. “I don’t like this, I want to go home.”

Jack didn’t respond, they had been up all night since they left the flat, Ellie was tired and grumpy, and cold, and most of all hungry.

“Can I have something to eat?”

Jack didn’t respond.

“Jack, I’m hungry.”

Jack squinted, staring intently at the lock.

Ellie stomped her foot. “Jaaaaaaaccckk.”

Her voice echoed across the car park, repeating back to her.

Something crashed closer, Ellie heard the growls again, still not sure what caused them. They were getting closer.

Jack looked up then, sighed, then grabbed Ellie’s arm and ran. Looks like no more food for a while longer.

* * *

“Silent treatment, then, is it? Yeah, I know. That’s always been your way. Even though you must have a thousand questions, like, “How come you’re still alive, Simon? Didn’t Jamie beat you to death, Simon? Why have you only got one hand, Simon? What happened to your face, Simon, what the hell happened to your face?”

Five raised a brow at him.

He was talking to her about a scarred face. Her. Of all people.

He seemed not to notice his own tone-deafness, and continued to ramble.

He was manic, waving his arms around wildly, occasionally skipping. His eyes darted behind the mask so fast Five could only see the whites, bloodshot and puffy.

He pointed wildly at her. “Do you know, I really did think Jamie was going to kill me. That’s not his way, oh no. He’s too bloody moral by half, is Jamie. Just a few punches, kick in the stomach. Don’t know why he didn’t go the whole hog and slap me. Like he couldn’t even be bothered to do it properly. Like he didn’t think I was worth it.”

_ Was Simon always this whiny? _

“Then he heard the zombs coming. Do you know what he did after that, Five, do you?” He stopped running, turned around and gaped at her. “He chucked that baseball bat down by my right hand.” Simon acted out the movement. He was shaking. ‘That’s more chance than you gave any of us,’ he said. Mister bloody high and mighty. And then he ran off and left me to the zombs.

“I couldn’t see the point, Five. Couldn’t see any reason to fight them off. Thought I’d just lie there and just let it happen. And then they were on me, a whole grey horde of them, grey and rotten and stinking to high heaven. My God, the smell of them, Five. You’ve never known pain like it. It went on and on and on, worse than I could have imagined.”

He started walking again, this time stilted, like he was a puppet with lead strings. Stiff, jagged.

“And then it went on some more,” he swallowed hard. “I don’t know how long it was before I realized it wasn’t ending. I wasn’t dying. I don’t think I can anymore. How funny is that? I got exactly what I wanted, and all it cost was everything that mattered.”

He seemed to stutter, physically, a glitch in place. Five followed, never lowering her weapon.

Though she supposed that didn’t matter anymore.

She didn’t realise she phased out, that her brain just switched off, rather annoyingly so, until Simon put his hand out and stopped her from walking straight into a hanging arm.

She stared at it, stared at him, looked back to it, twitching slightly.

_ Should I feel sick? _

Five’s eyes focussed in on more forms dangling from the trees, arm after arm after arm, some smaller, some larger and more developed, draped from the knotted branches of the trees, backlit by the cold sun of winter, reaching down to the fog settling on the forest floor.

Simon bared his teeth, scarred cheek peeking out behind the mask.

Was that a smile?

“Do you like it?” he whispered. It was almost a prayer, pleading, a last-ditch attempt. “My forest of limbs? Mostly arms, but I hang up the occasional leg, too, just for variety. It’s very handy.” He laughed, pushing the limbs aside for them to walk through. “Get it?  _ Handy, handy _ , you know, hands?”

Simon snorted. He touched the arms gently, brushing his fingers over their palms, their wrist, indenting the rotten flesh, almost caressing them with a reverence unbefitting for the situation. “I’ve been harvesting them for weeks, now. Well, it’s a hobby. Helps me fill up the long, lonely days. And it’s not like they can hurt me.” He glanced down at his hand. “I think I’m immune.”

They walked in silence a little while.

His hair was longer, dirty and unkept, she could smell him even from a few paces behind. Sweat and urine and blood.

Tattered clothes and tattered demeanour, he gave Five the impression of a rat.

A very sad and lonely and unwell rat.

All alone, all this time, with only his own guilt and the inability to die keeping him going.

Five knew what that was like.

The burn it made, the fire that grew in the pit of the stomach, burning away all reason and sense of reality. It left one hollow, a shell bound together with just the sticky feeling of wrongness and utter self-hate.

Yeah, Five knew that feeling well.

If it weren’t for Abel-

She glanced around.  _ This wasn’t too far from where I was. _

“Van Ark’s treatments, they were always unpredictable,” Simon broke the silence. “One person they’d kill, another person they’d give the exact same thing, and they’d end up with bloody superpowers, near enough! Said it was retroviral, keyed to each individual’s DNA. Never found out exactly what it did to me. Just let them give me the jabs and hoped. Crazy, when I think about it now. Benefit of hindsight, eh, Five?”

Five tightened her pack, not liking where this conversation was going. “He treated you, too, didn’t he? I wish I could tell you what he’d done to you, but I don’t think even he knew. Still, time will tell. Time always tells.”

* * *

“Do you believe in forgiveness, Five?” It was a funny thing to ask whilst pressing a gun to her ribs. “Me, I was brought up Catholic. All that repentance stuff is part of the package. A few Hail Marys, a couple of Our Fathers, and Bob’s your uncle. Only it’s all rubbish. Even when I was a kid, I thought it made God seem a total moke. As if He’s some kind of poor abused wife. You treat him like shit, and the next day you’re back with a bottle of communion wine and a bunch of rosaries, telling Him, aw, you love Him really, and won’t He please take you back? I never saw how that could work.”

He stepped away from her and started rustling through the papers strewn about his little cave. It was a mess in here, and it smelt worse than him.

Five stepped towards the door, stopping when Simon waved the weapon around wildly.

“Van Ark didn’t trust me, you know. Didn’t trust anyone. But he wasn’t as sneaky as he thought. I managed to find out where all his bases were, not just the ones he wanted me to know about. Since he died-,”

_ You don’t know that. _

“-I’ve been trawling through them, looking for – well, I’m sure you can guess. I didn’t find it, anyway, but at a little underground lab near here, I did find something else. A certain stack of research about a certain company called Comansys. I know you’re interested in them, been listening in to that chatterbox, Sam, and you know me! I do like to be helpful.”

Five jumped when he spun around and shoved a ton of paper into her arms, most bloody, all crumpled, and water damaged. “So, there they are. A present for you. Van Ark’s notes on Comansys. Half of it’s in code, but what I could decipher made for very interesting reading.”

She didn’t hold them.

Simon shoved her hard in the chest. “Oh, take it, for God’s sake. Take it and go!” He broke, spine bending a little like he tried to curl up into a ball but couldn’t quite admit that’s what he wanted to do. “Only please, just one favour. Tell them you found it yourself. Don’t tell them about me.”

The room, the papers, the manic, the guilt, the hatred of the world.

Five had been here, she’d lived this. In her head, she’d sunk lower. How could she stand over Simon and claim to be better when she knew she was worse.

_ He tried to kill a kid. _

The keyword being  _ tried. _

Five didn’t have that word.

He was crying, looming over her, yet feeling incredibly small.

Five nodded and left.

* * *

Five stumbled through the gate, pale and clammy.

She gripped a stack of papers to her chest, some stained with blood, dry so hopefully not hers. There was a moment, when Sam knew Five wasn’t aware of being observed that her face was sheer terror. Then, when the voices start to mould in, Five settled back into the cool confidence she’d been displaying the last few weeks.

“What you got there?” Sam asked, stepping up to help her pull her pack off.

The guards swept forward and took it for item listing, another one waiting to take Five to bite checks.

She stared down at the paper, opened her mouth, closed it, and shoved the papers at him.

“Get them to Janine, I found some notes on Van Ark in a Dedlock hideout,” she signed.

“You were in Dedlock territory?” Sam said. “Are you okay, are you hurt, Five are-,”

Five pulled at a rip in her jacket on the shoulder, revealing clean unhurt skin beneath. She clenched her jaw, looking slightly confused. “I’m fine, don’t worry I’m fine,” she turned to the guard waiting for bite checks. “Well let’s get this over with, I’m starving.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! I had a rest over the holidays and I'm now ready to tackle this fic head-on. This chapter was tough to get through, but it is done and I'm excited to move forward in the story!  
> I hope y'all still like reading my words, I'm still enjoying writing them.  
> Thank you so much!  
> Stay Safe Out There


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers for S3M14 keeper of secrets  
> CW: General ZR violence  
> Beta's by the brilliant and fabulous and awesome Chloe (love you boo xxx)

_ I’m so glad to see you’re okay, you had me really worried. _

He smiled.

Five clicked her fingers and Milo came bounding to her feet, sitting dutifully by her side. He was large enough that Five didn’t have to crouch to pat his head, instead lifting her hand to knot her finger through his fur.

“Good boy!” Five mumbled.

She looked up at Sam and he nodded, pushing her to continue the practice.

The smile she gave him was so bright, Sam could almost forgive Milo for not liking him if he made Five this happy.

Five clicked her fingers again and pointed at the dummy zombie, making a specific whistling sound only she could do.

Milo bounded at it, leaping into the air, paws digging into its wooden chest and tipping the dummy back.

It landed hard on its back with a thud, and Milo bit down on what would have been its throat.

This was the bit of Milo’s training Sam was a little wearier of. Not so much the fact that Milo could rip someone’s throat out – though that did scare the shit out of him – but more that Five had the ability to do that with a click and a whistle.

How many times had Five woken up sweaty and disoriented babbling about her being a danger?

Was giving her another means of death smart?

But then…it is another means of protection.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m bloody happy that beast is coming with us,” Nadia said beside him.

Sam shrugged; he didn’t like that they were going at all.

_ Something is going to go wrong. Something is going to go so wrong. _

“Can he hunt?” Nadia asked. “I hope he can hunt.”

Sam watched Five run up to Milo, excitedly patting his head and singing his praises. “Five’s taken him out a few times, caught a few pheasants.”

Nadia smirked. “Nice.”

Sam nodded again.

“Oh, what’s up with you, gonna miss your girlfriend?” Nadia asked. “Chin up Sam, it’s only a week at most.”

He wasn’t going to admit it to Nadia, but yes, actually.

Aside from the very rare occasions of Five being kidnapped – though they were becoming less rare - Sam had seen Five every single day since she arrived in Abel.

Every morning he saw her grumpily head to the bathroom and return with toothpaste on her shirt. Every evening he watched as she tried valiantly to stay awake and study, but usually spent most of the evening staring into the fire, half asleep.

A week without her.

Anything could go wrong.

And things always go wrong.

Nadia got bored when he didn’t bite, so she waved at Five. “Hey, I’m gonna go double check the supplies, I’ll meet you at the gate in an hour.”

She jogged away, heading to the supply shack.

Five barely looked up, too enamoured with scratching Milo’s chin.

_ You’re going to lose her. _

Sam rolled out his shoulders, he couldn’t face just waiting for her to leave, he needed to do something.

Sam left, heading to the shack to run some final checks.

* * *

Five thought it would be awkward running a mission with Nadia.

Not so much that Nadia had tried to get her killed, that was old news, and really, who hadn’t tried to get her killed at some point. That story was old hat.

Five hadn’t really done a big dual mission like this without Sara.

Small runs with the others never really add up to more than a few hours.

The big missions, the important ones, those were for Sara and her.

Nadia was not Sara.

At least Nadia didn’t talk much.

That was something nice, Nadia didn’t seem to mind falling into a comfortable silence, speaking only when she needed to.

Sam asked if things were okay, they both agreed that they were great. It seems they just liked the company of their own thoughts and less cheap conversation.

Five liked that.

It gave her a chance to breathe. It had been a long time since someone hadn’t needed Five’s attention.

And she realised that running a big mission without Sara wasn’t as choking as she thought it would be.

It was irritating, constantly having to cover her six because that used to be Sara’s job and Nadia didn’t. It was also tough having to slow her pace to match with Nadia, and Nadia didn’t have a lot of field training, so when they came across zombies she tended to squeak and panic and Five would have to deal with it or Nadia would look anxious and lose her concentration.

But these were things Five could deal with.

Five supposed she’d find it more annoying if Nadia tried to fill Sara’s shoes.

Maybe that was why she hated running with Paula so much?

“Five, can we-,”

Five stopped. Nadia was squatting over her pack, pulling out some water. “Just a quick break.”

Five nodded.

This had happened a few times now, she’d been running so much she didn’t really take breaks. Five didn’t even feel breathless.

Nadia tossed her a bottle, grabbing her own and chugging it back, panting between gulps.

“I don’t think I’ve ever ran for so long,” Nadia said, she replaced the lid and adjusted her hijab, moving the headset around over it. “How much further?”

Five shrugged.

“Well, that’s helpful,” Nadia snarked, pressing down a button on her headset to ping Sam. He flipped to their channel immediately.

“What’s wrong, is everything okay, are you hurt?”

Nadia raised a brow at Five.

_ What was that supposed to mean? _

“Sammy, how much further, you said we would be at the location by now,”

Sam hummed. “Well…ahh…that was with Five’s average pace.”

Nadia scoffed. “I’m not Five am I, do I look like I run for a living? You can hardly expect me to keep up with the  _ great Runner Five. _ ”

Sam didn’t answer that.

Nadia snorted. “Look… how far given  _ my pace _ you know, the person who’s pace you should have used.”

“Hey I-,”

“Always go for the weakest link when figuring out plans Sam, lowest denominator.”

“You’re not the weakest link.”

“Compared to Five I am,” Nadia gave Five a smirk. “So, how far?”

“Uhhh, three more miles,” Sam said. “I think.”

“You think?”

“GPS is a little - spotty - out there, because you know…no one is maintaining the satellites.”

Nadia zipped up her pack and stood up. “Three miles-ish, then come on Five, I’ll race you.”

Five whistled for Milo but the dog didn’t appear. He did this sometimes, went off on his own. It didn’t bother Five too much but it drove Sam crazy.

He would show up when he wanted to.

* * *

It didn’t take long to reach the base. Despite what Nadia said, she was a competent runner. All that time under house arrest had given her plenty of opportunity to lap New Canton.

The weirdest part wasn’t that they found a secret science base where obviously secret evil scientists clanged beakers together and cackled maniacally, nor was it the second more dangerous and secret base below the first one, which if Five had to guess, was even more evil.

No, it was the blue flowers that dusted the forest floor.

They trailed up the trees like ivy, petals cracking the bark to poke against the brown.

As they ascended the ladder to the first super secret base, Five was half tempted to pick one to press for her journal, but something made her stop.

They were just too nice, too pretty, too well survived in an otherwise winter dead forest. And the way they grew on any surface. The grass, the tree, the ladder they were trying to climb.

Five suspected there was more to them than the pretty blue exterior.

“The sandwich is moldy. There are two bites missing, and the tea is half drunk. It’s like they just got up and went,” Nadia announced, leaning back from the dirty window she was peeking through.

Five watched the perimeter, something Nadia should be doing as a secondary runner, but she was little preoccupied, with not doing that.

“Really? See if they left any marmite,” Sam asked.

Five snorted.

“What?”

“Well, I’ve almost ran out! Down to my last five jars,” he said.

Nadia sighed. “Sam, take this seriously! There’s something strange about the setup here.”

Sam hummed. “Five, the cables seem to feed into that hub behind you. Can you check it?”

Nadia stepped in front of Five. Five almost puffed up her height in response. “I’ll do it. I know my way around a video relay.”

_ So did she, Sam wouldn’t ask her to do it if she- _

Something moved in the foliage above.

“What was that? Did you hear that sound? That was something, right?”

Five spotted it, a shape shifting, drifting almost. She gestured at it.

“I don’t know. I-,” Nadia squinted. “Yes. I see it. On that walkway three trees away. It’s too far to make out what it is. Doesn’t look human.”

“Nadia, stay there. Fix up those cameras,” Sam ordered. “Five, see if you can get eyes on whatever that is.”

Five skirted around the thing she clocked, giving a wide berth as she tried to get a better view.

Her steps were deliberate, her breath almost silent. Five felt wound up, but not in a bad way, she just felt incredibly alert, like on those days she couldn’t not notice every sound and movement and shift.

Unlike then, it didn’t seem to overwhelm her, it was almost calming, settling into something that was so high stress, she had been wired for this.

A bird flittered in the tree above, a leaf dropped on the bridge before her. Headset crackled, wind howled like a hollow scream, and the thing moved on.

She didn’t see it move, but it was a shift in the air, and she knew before she got a clear view of the bridge that the thing was gone.

Five rolled out her shoulder, not leaving the little shelter she had made her way into that connected the bridges. She had a feeling it hadn’t moved far.

Five pulled out her knife.

Heartbeat.

Another.

A bird screeched and there, a shift in wood, the creak of nails. Five didn’t move, but she knew, it was on the roof above her.

Whatever it was, it had the advantage. Step out and it would jump down, stay in there and she was trapped.

_ Think Five, what would Sara do? _

The thing stepped.

“Did you hear that? On the roof? Fuck, I don’t have eyes on you,” Sam started. Five saw no use in turning him down, the thing knew she was there.

“Nadia, I want you to step out of your building and look north-northwest. Can you see Five? Nadia?”

A few beats, the thing above didn’t breathe.

How did it not breathe?

_ The same way you don’t. _

“Yeah. I think I can. Yeah, that’s you.”

Nadia moved somewhere far in Five’s peripheral vision.

“Okay, Nadia, now, I want you to look up. Is there anything on the roof of that walkway?

Nadia swore. “There is. It’s definitely an animal. Looks feline. Really big, though. It’s looking down right towards you, Five, as if it can see you through the wood. I think-,”

Five didn’t hear the rest of what Nadia had to say, the thing leapt down onto the walkway, and leapt right at her.

She could feel its claws dig into her chest, its weight throwing her back over the railings. And together, they fell.

* * *

Jack landed hard on her back with a gross squelch.

Ellie screamed, something was cut through Jacks left side, pushing up into her skin and-

“Jack oh my god, oh my fucking god,” Ellie squeaked, trying to find a way down. She wasn’t sure what fucking meant, but she heard Jack use it when she was stressed, and right now Ellie was pretty fucking stressed.

They had been sneaking across an old construction site, trying to get over the horde that had been drifting west. But Ellie had freaked, she didn’t like heights, she hated them, so when Jack tried to help her across a metal beam, Ellie froze, and the horde got closer.

Jack held them off for a bit, urging Ellie to make it across. And she did, she had been so proud she did.

But then Jack fell, and now-

Ellie clapped a hand over her mouth, no screaming, no noise, that’s what Jack had told her. They like sound, and Ellie was being very very loud.

Okay breathe, breathe, this will be okay, she can figure this out, she was smart, everyone said she was.

Smartest girl of her age, so damn smart.

_ You need to stop being such a smart mouth. _

Step one: Find a way down.

Ellie spotted a ladder a little way off, she would have to jump to another beam to get to it, but what was a little fear when Jack was hurt.

Ellie put on a concentrated expression she saw Jack do and threw herself at the other beam.

It hit her hard in the ribs, and her pack slipped off and landed on the floor with a dull thud. It’s okay, she could get it later.

Swinging her legs wildly, Ellie managed to wrap them over the beam, stabilising herself, and as quickly as she could, crawled across the beam to the ladder.

One of the zombies fell with Jack, and though it landed a bit away and broke its legs, it began to crawl towards her. And Jack…Jack wasn’t moving.

Ellie’s feet barely hit the floor before she was looking for something to kill the zombie with. She hadn’t done it yet, only Jack had killed them. But Jack was hurt, it was her job to look after her.

Ellie grabbed a big clunk of wood, about the size of her arm. It was heavy, but she could drag it.

She grit her teeth as she swung it over her head and into the skull of the zombie crawling towards Jack.

She thought it would be more gross, to crack a skull, it seemed to make Jack a little sick, but Ellie just thought it was like cracking open a boiled egg. Nothing of too much note.

She used her foot to dislodge the stick, and took another swipe, flattening it to the concrete floor.

Saving Jack.

Jack.

Ellie dropped the wood, breathing hard. Was she okay, she had to be okay, please please.

“Fucking shit,” Jack spluttered. “Ellie, are you okay?”

Ellie blinked. “Am I okay?”

Jack looked, well, bad. She was breathing very fast and had her hand pressed to the cut in her side. Even in the dark, and through the dark grey shirt Jack was wearing, she could see it, a lot of blood.

Ellie wasn’t too sure what to do now.

“Jack-,”

Jack grit her teeth and dislodged the thing from her side, it appeared to be some sort of metal spike.

Ellie had never heard Jack whimper. She didn’t like it.

“Jack I-,”

Jack rested her head back on the floor, panting, still holding the wound. “I’m okay, I…, can you see a way out?”

Ellie nodded. “There’s a ladder there, I think it will get us up and-,”

Jack swore again.

Ellie was nervous, there was movement above them, the horde must have followed them up the steps, not just a few stragglers.

“I’m never going to be able to climb that,” Jack mumbled, and for a moment Ellie thought she was yelling at her, and then she thought she would tell her to go ahead without her.

Ellie opened her mouth but Jack gestured wildly towards her pack that fell a few feet away.

“Get out the lighter,” Jack said through gritted teeth. “The lighter and my knife.”

* * *

Five woke to Sam screaming at her to run.

_ This is becoming commonplace,  _ she thought, then realised that perhaps, right now, she shouldn’t be snarky but instead, like, run.

But it hurt, her side hurt like all hell.

But Sam was screaming.

But it would be easier to just close her eyes.

She sighed; nap time was a later thing. Five got up and did what she always did, she ran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Im sorry it took so long, carving out time to write with my dissertation and final year stuff is a little tough, thank you for sticking with me despite that!!!  
> Stay Safe Out There


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers for S3M15 - Veronica  
> Beta'd by the glorious Chloe (love you boo xoxo)   
> I hope you enjoy!

_ There is an innate sadness about you, and it’s not going to go away _

Five had a dream she was ripping out her nerves through her mouth. It didn’t so much hurt as it was uncomfortable, which, in a way, made it worse. It ripped and tore and snapped, and she had to scramble to get a good enough hold to keep pulling, because for some reason, it needed to come out, she needed the dead nerves to come out.

“Five,”

Five blinked awake.

Nadia looked down at her with an odd look on her face. “You sleep like the dead, you know?”

“I’ve been told,” Five signed.

She groaned, cracking her back and standing. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but really there wasn’t much to do. Veronica was busy working in the lab. She refused to let Five in after Five accidentally crushed a beaker in her hand, and Nadia was far better equipped – meaning she actually got along with kids – so Five had found a lot of free time since arriving at Treetop Base.

It’d been a week since she’d been home, she missed it, she missed him.

Nadia sniffed, she was looking a little damp, Five squinted at her.

“It’s raining, and Milo needed help getting up the ladder,” Nadia said.

Five frowned. “I could have got him.”

Nadia shrugged. She’d read it in her file that she doesn’t like the rain. Five didn’t know how to feel about that. With the expanding of missions, runners had to have files that got sent out to operators and medicals. Since Five had run missions under Nadia, of course she would have read her file.

Maxine thought it was kind, but it just made Five feel weak.

“Milo’s drying off by the space heater, I made lunch.”

Five smiled. Nadia had been very kind to her. It wasn’t a  _ ‘Sorry I almost got you killed thing’ _ but really a  _ ‘I’m sorry you fell through the trees and I’m surprised you survived and am a little worried you’re more hurt than you are letting on so I will baby you.’ _

“How’s the kid?” Five signed, following Nadia out of the small office Five had claimed as her own.

Nadia shrugged again. “She’s something, I keep forgetting she’s thirteen and then she’ll do something and I’m like, yeah, there is no way anyone but a thirteen-year-old would do that,” Nadia said. “She likes to pretend she’s not a kid, but really, she’s a little brat just like other teenagers.”

Five sensed there was a story there. What would Sam do? Get them talking, she needed to get better with people.

“You sound like you have experience,” Five signed.

Nadia nodded. “I had a younger sister, one about Veronica’s age before it all went down, so, transferable skills.”

They turned a corner, past a window battered with rain, Five jumped, Nadia noticed.

“What about you, any siblings?” Nadia asked.

Five swallowed.

“No.”

“Only child, lucky then, I bet your parents spoiled you,” Nadia smirked.

Five shook her head. “We weren’t close.”

“Oh, shame,” Nadia said. “I don’t know what I would’ve done without my parents, I miss them.”

“They didn’t make it?” Five asked.

Nadia sniffed again. “I dunno, they may have, they lived just off Glasgow so maybe, but…It’s best not to think about it.”

Five agreed. Best not to think about it.

They arrived at the little rec room the tree top base made for its employees, a few sofas, some books, some old board games. It reminded Five of her university’s old common room, stuck in seventies architecture with the desperation of the younger students trying to make it cosy but failing against the white brick walls, the strange clash of worlds between professor and student.

Veronica was sat curled up on a sofa, nose stuck in a textbook, untouched plate of food on the arm.

Five sighed, grabbed the textbook, marked the page and snapped it shut.

“Hey I was-,”

“You can read after you eat,” Five said, she pointed at the food. “Eat.”

Veronica started to protest.

“Whining won’t get you anywhere,” Five said. “Come on, Nadia made you food, it’s going to get cold.”

Veronica huffed and folded her arms. “Fine.”

Nadia snorted. “You sure you don’t have siblings?” she signed at Five.

Five shook her head. She just knew the type; Veronica was too smart for her own good.

She knelt by Milo, curled up by the space heater, his fur still wet from the rain, the smell of wet dog hanging around him.

“Milo, you stink,” Five said.

He seemed unbothered by how much he stank.

Five patted his head and shifted over the table, offering a thanks to Nadia as she passed her the jacket potato.

Despite what she told Veronica, Five pulled out the bracelet they had uncovered on the Rachel lady – the one Sam identified as a cult member – it was familiar, she’d seen someone else wear it, probably another cult member, but that didn’t seem right.

What was it Veronica said, a strange lady interested in plants came along and had a drumming circle?

Coincidences on coincidences.

Five turned the bracelet over.

They should have kept that Moonchild lady in Abel for questioning, she was far too…odd.

Or maybe Five was just being prejudiced, grouping all the people who did drumming circles and pagan rituals into one. She knew it was a varied belief, and with how things are, turning to new faiths would be a coping mechanism for many, it wasn’t like Moonchild was the only aurabelieving-culturally-appropriating person out there.

But still, the cult was there, the cult was here, a hippy was there, a hippy was here.

Coincidences on Coincidences.

No, it’s not a coincidence.

“Veronica,” Five started.

Veronica looked up from her sulking. She looked so much like Chris, dark brown skin, kinky hair tied neatly back at the nape of her neck, she even squinted the way he did when she was thinking.

_ And you killed him. _

“Yeah?”

“The lady that came by to study the plants, she wasn’t a blonde, white woman, was she? May have had henna on her hands, called herself Moonchild?”

Veronica squinted. “Yes…why?”

Five nodded to herself. “We ran into her, think she has something to do with that cult.”

“You think she…she stole my friends to be sacrifices for the zombies?” Veronica asked. So matter of factly, so adult.

She’s just a kid.

“No, no, I don’t believe she works with them.”

“Then what?” Veronica asked.

“I’m waiting till I have all the facts to draw my conclusion.”

Nadia snorted. “I’m surrounded by nerds.”

She wanted to break the tension, remove the stress from what was clearly traumatic for the kid.

“It’s not important,” Five said. “Just ignore me.”

Veronica turned back to her food. “Gladly.”

Ah, teenagers.

* * *

Five woke up in a sweat, her jaw aching. Milo poked his head up from the base of the bed, giving her a whine.

She scratched his ears. “I’m okay, buddy, I’m okay.”

Milo looked unconvinced.

“Learned that look from Sam, did you?”

Milo rested his head back down. Learned that from Sam too.

Gently, she manoeuvred around him, being sure her feet didn’t knock into him. At least one of them could get a full night’s sleep.

It was too hot, and Five needed water, she reached for the glass she kept by the bed but she’d drunk through that too.

Great, looks like she needed to go on a hunt.

It was still raining, if she paid attention, Treetop base would swing with a barrage of wind. She tried not to pay attention.

Five had rather gotten used to sleeping in the cold, so the heating that the base had was a little smothering, it made her sweaty in places that had no right to be sweaty.

Five left her room, waddling barefoot down the corridor – pointedly not looking out the window – towards the kitchen.

The light was on.

That damn kid.

Five rolled out her bad arm and leaned on the door frame.

Veronica was curled over a book on the table, her back facing Five, in her night clothes.

She didn’t notice Five.

Most people don’t, Five had gotten very good at sneaking.

Five cleared her throat.

Veronica jumped up, swivelling in the chair and glaring at Five.

She tutted. “Oh, only you.”

“Wow, don’t sound so overjoyed,” Five said.

Veronica shrugged and turned back to her work. “Nadia would yell at me if she-,”

“What makes you think I’m not going to yell at you?”

“You can hardly talk to me without stuttering.”

Five blinked. “Well, that was rude.”

“Perhaps, it’s true though.”

Well atleast the kid was honest.

“You don’t much like me,” Five said.

“I’m indifferent,” Veronica said.

Five smirked, put her hands behind her back and half skipped into the room. “So there is a possibility the great Veronica would grace me with her approval,” she leaned on the table by her. “I’m honoured to have this chance.”

“You’re annoying.”

“I’ve been told.”

Veronica very determinedly kept staring at her book, though with the way her shoulders were tense Five knew she wasn’t reading.

Oh it’d been a long time since she was the annoying big sister.

“Whadya reading,” Five asked, craning her head to look at the book.

“I’m not sure you’ll get it,” Veronica said.

“Try me.”

“I’m currently reading up on epigenetics.”

“You think that the lynx’s epigenome altered his DNA someway to make him susceptible to infection. Bit of a long shot.”

Veronica stared at her. “Uhh, yes, actually, well…I don’t really have the facilities to test DNA sequencing, and um, I thought maybe something about his environment caused him to not be immune.”

“Did he have any family?” Five asked.

“Yes, and they didn’t get infected.”

Five frowned. “I don’t know, it seems a mutation is more likely than a-,”

“Yes, well, I could have figured that out if you hadn’t beheaded the damn thing.”

Five snapped her mouth shut. “In my defence he was very scary.”

“Ugh.”

“Big jaw, claws, what was a girl to do?”

“Not kill it.”

Five stayed silent for a while. “You should get to bed, big day tomorrow, breaking into a base, it’s big kid business.”

“I’m not a kid.”

“Say that to me when you actually reach my shoulders.”

“You are insufferable.”

“You are tiny.”

Veronica snapped her book closed. “What do I have to do to get you to leave me alone?”

“Go to bed,” Five said. “Come on, whatever your reading can’t be more important than a good night’s sleep.”

“It might-,”

“It’s not, come on, Nadia will be grumpy if you look tired tomorrow, and trust me, you don’t want to deal with a grumpy Nadia.”

“What’s the worst she can do?”

“Well…before we were friends she did try to get me killed, so maybe don’t push her.”

“Shame she failed.”

“Wow, someone needs a nap, this is what happens when you stay up past bedtime.”

Veronica got up and shoved the book at Five. “Fine. Good night.”

“Sleep tight,” Five smiled.

Veronica walked off.

“Don’t let the bed bugs bite,” she called after her.

Veronica waved over her head in a  _ please shut up _ way.

“See you in the morning light.”

A groan.

Man, Five had missed this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was a tad shorter of a chapter, and something a little calmer than usual, I hope you like it! Finding time to write in the hecticness of my dissertation is a little tricky, so chapters may be shorter and sparser for a month or so (after March my diss is done and I will be free to write to my hearts content)  
> Stay Safe Out There!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: No spoilers beyond last chapter, but mentions of bad medical knowledge  
> Proof read by the wonderful, brilliant, and ever so lovely Chloe

_ I don’t want you to ever leave me _

It was about 2 AM when the bike bringing Five in turned up at the gate.

He should have been in bed, he had an early run to monitor with Owen in the morning and he needed to be on top of his game, but he just couldn’t sleep.

_ She’s coming home. _

Sam made himself busy with some papers in the shack, things he’d been leaving on the back burner – or just simply ignoring – the past week.

He didn’t think he’d ever done so much paperwork than in the hours waiting for the bike sent out to pick up Five and Milo.

The gate didn’t make the noise as it opened, but instead flashed a bright light, it’s all well and good having a gate warning, but in the middle of the night, a loud noise wasn’t exactly the smartest thing.

The bike and the rider – the not Ed rider – pulled up to the road that led to the garage, turning the engine off so it wouldn’t work loudly in the night.

Attached to the side of the bike, a little cart held a very perturbed and windswept looking Milo. As soon as it stopped he jumped out and growled at the bike.

“I’m sorry buddy, but you couldn’t run the whole way,” Five said.

Five said.

Five.

She climbed off the back of the bike, looking just as windswept and cold as Milo, nose and cheeks flushed with red, hair messy, but smiling like a child.

Sam put his hands in his pocket and walked up.

“Hey,” he said. Why did he feel like he was asking her out for the first time? Why did this feel so new, they’d literally seen each other naked.

The driver – the not Ed driver – gave a snort, said bye to Five and dragged the bike off with the help of some guards.

Five was scratching Milo’s chin, soothing his tantrum. “Oh, I know buddy, it’s a tough life, you work so hard and get so little, huh.”

Milo whined but didn’t pull away from her petting.

“Hey Five,” Sam said again.

Five looked up.

Damn.

He missed her.

“SAM!”

Five shot up and flung her arms around his neck, pressing her cheek to his. The force of her nearly knocked him back but, he didn’t let go.

It was her, the shape, the smell, the feeling.

“I missed you,” he said.

“I should hope so,” Five teased, she pulled back a little to look at him, kissed him then smiled. “I missed you too.”

Sam hugged her again.

One week, it had only been one week.

One week of imagining all the terrible things that could go wrong, of thinking of Five alone out there, one week and it hurt like hell.

_ Something is going to ruin this. _

Sam studied her face. “You look tired.”

At that, all of Five’s energy drained away. “Uhh, yeah, actually, I am.”

“The great runner Five gets tired? Wow, expectations ruined.”

She pulled away from the hug but linked her hand with his, running her thumb on the back of his palm. “I’m too tired to quip, so you win this.”

“I do? Fuck yeah, what do I win?”

Five smiled blankly at him, squinted then rested her head on his shoulder. “Saammmmmmmm.”

Wow, she really was tired.

“Okay then, bedtime it is,” he squeezed her hand and led her off to bed.

Five was out before she even had time to pull the blankets up, face calmer than it had been in a while, he climbed in bed next to her and felt his heart hurt as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled closer.

He missed this.

He missed her.

* * *

Jack grunted as she tipped the shelf by the door over, blocking the entrance from the outside. She wobbled a little, stared at it, then turned back to the fabric shop.

“Okay,” she said. “Stay close.”

She said it like Ellie wouldn’t, like Ellie would leave her like this, struggling to walk and hunched in pain.

Ellie wouldn’t leave Jack if she wasn’t injured, she sure as fuck wouldn’t leave her now.

Jack hobbled into the main shop, peaking around shelves of fabric, knife gripped tightly in her hand.

She could still smell it, the burning flesh, how Jack cried into a glove she shoved into her mouth to stop her from screaming. The fact that even after Ellie had crushed a man's head, she still told Ellie to turn around. Like seeing Jack burn her wound close was something worse than the things she already saw.

“I’m not a kid, you know,” Ellie blurted.

Jack stumbled a moment, she was looking sweaty. “What?”

Ellie repeated herself a tad louder. “I’m not a kid,” she said. “I could have helped with the…caut – cauter-,”

“Cauterisation,” Jack prompted. “And I know.”

“Then why didn’t you let me help?”

“Because…” Jack faltered. “Ellie I don’t want to hide anything from you.”

“Yeah, I get that everything is fucked up,” Ellie said.

Jack blinked at her swearing. “Yeah,” she coughed. “Yeah, it is.”

“But that doesn’t mean I can’t help you,” Ellie argued. “Things are only going to get worse.”

Ellie wasn’t too sure what she meant by that.  _ Things are going to get worse. _ It wasn’t exactly happy, though Ellie wasn’t sure there was much to feel happy for.

She was with Jack, that made her happy. But, well, Ellie wasn’t sure what to make of everything else.

She figured it should make her feel bad, the way Jack grimaced at each new body, Ellie knew that she should be feeling bad for the world. But Ellie felt nothing.

This is how it is now, it’s only going to get worse.

It seemed like Jack didn’t want to accept that.

“Things will get better,” Jack said. “Once we get to Mullins we’ll have the army to help us.”

Ahh yes, Mullins, the military base Jack had heard about on a dead soldiers radio.

“I’m not sure if things will get better,” Ellie admitted. “But that’s okay, I don’t mind this, just being with you, it’s far better than going to school.”

Jack gave Ellie a smile that was more sad than happy. “This is no life,” she said.

“We’re alive, ain’t we?” Ellie said.

Jack nodded, pressed a hand to her wound and leaned on the shelf, looking down at her.

“So, you’re saying you would rather we travel like this forever?”

“It works,” Ellie said.

Jack raised a brow. “You won’t miss reading new books, learning new things? You won’t miss making new friends?”

Ellie hesitated. “I’ll make do.”

“Will you, you’d be happy living with just me, forever?”

Ellie frowned. “Why wouldn’t I want you in my life?”

Jack shook her head. “No, I mean, I’m the only other person you see, ever, forever, or what if I get hurt worse than this, you’ll be on your own, I don’t want that for you. I don’t want that for either of us, people ain’t meant to be alone, we need to find somewhere we can make a life. Mullins is our best bet.”

Ellie mulled it over, and she was grateful Jack didn’t interrupt her like her teachers did when she was thinking something over.

They thought that she was ignoring them, but Jack knew that Ellie was just working through things.

Others never knew that, maybe life with just Jack would be good. Ellie often didn’t get along with others.

Ellie’s eyes flicked to the hand pressed to Jack's wound.

_ I don’t want to be alone. _

“Okay,” Ellie conceded. “Things can be better.”

That earned her a smile.

Jack turned around and faced the room. “Right then, we’re looking for anything clean that can be ripped into strips and act as bandages.”

Ellie nodded, giving the dark room a once over.

She paused.

She knew Jack said bandages but Ellie was sure she’d let her have this.

She skipped over to a spinning display shelf, rolls of ribbon neatly organised in rainbow.

“Jack?”

Jack peaked her head around the corner. “Yeah?”

Ellie held up the roll of yellow ribbon. “Can I have this?”

* * *

When Five woke it was still dark. She rolled over, expecting to find Sam sprawled next to her, but found an empty bed instead.

She looked at her watch. Sometime past five, he’d probably gotten up early for the day.

Despite what was probably three hours of sleep, Five felt surprisingly refreshed, the throbbing in her head since her tumble gone. Five rubbed the back of her head.

_ It really was a lucky miss. Like the bullet with Simon. _

Five pulled the sleeve of her -actually Sam’s – shirt, poking at the space she was sure a bullet traced across her skin. Clear. Except, a faint pink line.

She ran her thumb over it, smooth, but it wrinkled like scar tissue when she pressed on it at certain angles.

_ Coincidences on coincidences. _

Five was an amalgamation of too many, something wasn’t on accident. It couldn’t be.

_ Moonchild. _

Five rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She figured she may as well get up and write a report on her findings for Amelia. Five wanted to interview some of the people of Abel about what they remember on Moonchild.

She also needed to check in that Jody followed her training plan for the new runners, somewhere on her to-do list that she’d been putting off was negotiating a sports equipment run. She had to reassess some of the intermediate runners, see if they were ready for sustained long runs. Then there was scheduling she’d fallen behind on whilst away, doing woodwork for the kitchen staff - which would mean toffee apples for the kids Sam so desperately wanted to give out - then getting the stones out of the training yard and-

Five took a breath. Yeah, she had a lot to do.

Maybe she should start writing this shit down.

_ To do: Be twelve places at once. _

She couldn’t complain. On good days, she liked the business. On bad days? Well, she hadn’t had a bad day for a while.

The adrenaline of losing Maxing was carrying her a long way, she tried not to think about what might happen if she lost that.

Five stole some of Sam’s clothes and left the room, surprised to find Jody’s door open and sitting up in bed knitting.

“She awakens!” Jody announces. “I’m going to hug you, prepare yourself.”

Jody shot up out of bed and charged, wrapping her arms under Fives, making Five very aware how bad she probably smelt.

“You smell right awful,” Jody said, but squeezed her tighter. “I missed you, don’t know how you do it, training runners is a pain in the ass.”

She stood back and smiled up at Five, already dressed in her running gear.

“You have an early run?” Five signed, still a little too groggy to focus on forming words.

Jody frowned. “No I just got back, gonna head to tea, wanna come?”

The amount of time it took Five to puzzle over that was a tad embarrassing.

“What time is it?” Five asked.

Jody smirked. “Like – nearly six – in the evening,” she poked at Five. “You’ve been dead to the world since you got back, Janine just thought to give you the day off seeing as you were so tired.”

Five nodded. That was nice. Not needed though, a whole day lost of work she could have done.

“I’m gonna get a shower, save me a seat?” Five asked.

Jody nodded and headed out.

Five sighed.

She really didn’t mean to sleep the day away, maybe she could pull an all nighter to catch up.

Five padded to her bedroom, grabbed her washkit and without even noticing, took off her yellow ribbon and left it on the bed by her teddy.

* * *

Sam found Five after dinner sawing some wood in the quad, she had one foot up to keep it steady, muscles in her arm working.

He stammered, then trying to appear cool, leaned on the fence and folded his arms.

_ Real cool. _

“What happened to taking the day off?” he called.

Five smiled up at him. “Nothing like a bit of sawing to relax the mind, almost meditative, hypnotic,” she kicked at it and the plank split in two. “I missed you at dinner.”

Sam rolled out the crick in his neck “Yeah, long day on comms.”

Five squatted and measured out along another plank, marking with a pencil she’d tucked behind her ear. “I thought I told you to work on your posture.”

“Well, clearly you didn’t tell me enough.”

She held up the plank, “We could strap this to your back to keep it straight.”

He opened his mouth.

“I never do anything straight,” Five said in a mock voice.

“Oy, let a man have his moment.”

“Nah,” she stood, placing the wood on the stool and started sawing along it again.

“This for the kitchen staff?” Sam asked.

“Yup.”

Sam paused for a moment, then cocked his head. “Where on earth did you learn to make a cabinet?”

Five grunted a little with effort, kicking off the cut plank and moving it out of the way. “I uhhh, I didn’t have a lot of money for a time, so I just sort of made things for us instead.”

“Made things?”

“Yeah, got really good at repairing clothes, helped me with that damn hoodie of yours.”

“And woodwork.”

“I made our beds, sleeping on a mattress on the floor is something only straight boys do, I would not sink to that level.”

“Literally,” he joked.

She smiled, measuring another section. “Literally.” Five picked it up and lined it up with the already sawed pieces. “Go to a tip in a city, they have plenty of wood, grab some nails and a saw and voila, beds.”

“You lived with someone else?”

The pause was almost missed, the flicker of something on her face, a twitch of the lip. “For a time.”

“Roommate?”

“Something like that,”

“Partner?”

“Oh god no, no, um…” Five bowed her head, coughed, then pulled the pencil from behind her ear and tapped it on the wood before her. He let her take her time, sometimes Five needed this, pauses in the conversation to plan what words to form next.

Speaking had gotten a lot easier, but articulating difficult thoughts, that was something she struggled with even when signing.

“I lived with my sister for a while.”

Sam froze. “You never told me you have a sister.”

She shrugged, whatever was there before gone, nonchalance back. “Never really came up.”

Sam thought about conversations he had about his sister, his family, what things he wanted people to ask, what he didn’t want them to ask but secretly did, what they always asked that he hated.

But this was different, Five never spoke about her life before, it’s what made Five…well…Five. Like the outbreak is what created her, shaped her out of the rubble of the broken world of before.

Five was perfectly suited to life in the apocalypse, so thinking of her with a family, a job, a sister – it felt almost wrong.

“Do you want to talk about her?” Sam asked.

“Not really.”

Something like annoyance struck his chest.

He’d shared everything with Five, and she didn’t want to-

No, no not everyone wants to talk about life before, he shouldn’t force that on Five, even if it does feel a little like she doesn’t trust him.

_ She’ll betray you too, you’re going to lose her too. _

Sam swallowed. He hated this, hated finding a reason he would lose in every sentence, every shift in body.

He just couldn’t stop finding reasons things were going wrong.

“Oh.”

Five looked up. “Sorry, I just I-,” she trailed off. “There just ain’t a lot to say.”

“You didn’t get along?”

Five shrugged like he asked her what time it was.

Okay, now she was being deliberately obtuse.

No, no she doesn’t want to talk about it, it’s not her fault. Stop trying to find fault.

“I’m going to go paint some mini’s with Paula, come by if you have time.”

This got more of a reaction, but again, it flickered away, into a smile, warm and sweet and just for him. “Okay, have fun.”

* * *

Sam slept alone that night, and he found he felt a little guilty about how well he slept without Five having nightmares next to him, just like every other night Five had been gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So hey!!  
> I'm really sorry but this is going to be my last update in a while! As we head into March I have a fuckton of deadlines, dissertations, and all round general busyness that something is going to have to give, and so I'm going to sit on this for a month. I'm sorry, I really wanted to be further along in the story by now, but Uni decided to come to my house and beat me up, so I've got that going for me!  
> I really hope you all have a lovely month, and after March I have all of April off, and I would like to mark my one year anniversary in this fandom with something special...that being a lot more writing!  
> Thank you for sticking with this, even with the inconsistent uploads  
> Stay Safe Out There


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